Scar
by onesieandacalendar
Summary: Mark takes Sloan down to LA and begins to reconnect with Addison through a series of events eventually leading to a discovery of basically what their relationship really means, and if they have a future. All spoilers for the crossover apply. One-shot.


**Thanks to McMuffin for beta-ing, STEP ONE OF MY EVIL PLAN TO TAKE OVER THIS WEBSITE WITH MADDISON. AND OMGAWD YOU GUYS- THENEWPROMO.**

**Disclaimer- I don't own anything. Lyrics are from "Scar" by Missy Higgins. **

_And doesn't that sound familiar?  
Doesn't that hit too close to home?  
Doesn't that make you shiver; the way things could've gone?  
And doesn't it feel peculiar that everyone wants a little more.  
So that I do remember to never go that far,  
Could you leave me with a scar?_

_///_

Mark paces back and forth in front of the door of her LA dream home, his heart skipping beats and his brain spiralling out of control. He wants to knock; he wants to be able to see her tanned skin, and blue eyes that used to write stories to him. But this was all in the past, and especially with the way he yelled at her, he's sure she'll be too stubborn to give in.

His hand raises itself to the door, a reflex he knows was out of his control because every fiber of his being is telling him this is a bad idea but he knocks anyway, three times, their secret code from all the way back in college.

She hears the knocks as she's pouring herself her fourth glass of wine for the night. Three times, she thinks, just like old times. A part of her knows it's him before she gets to the door, not just because of the code, but because of the tradition.

She runs, he follows.

He's not particularly sure what he's hoping to get out of this, since he can't imagine why she'd want to help him after he proceeded to put her through hell by criticizing her every cut, every flinch of a muscle.

But what he forgets is that among the lies, the cheating and the hurt she also killed one of his children, and she's not about to do that again.

"Where is she?" she asks, pushing the short strands of her away from her eyes. He can smell the alcohol seeping out of her pores.

"You're drunk," he tells her.

Addison glares and turns her head to the side, shaking it a tiny bit. She takes a couple of steps back before walking in a perfectly straight line towards him, reciting the ABC's backwards.

"That test is bullshit, I don't even know how to say the ABC's backwards."

She stops to look at him, "I know." She says, because she does know, she knows every little detail of his life from the time he was old enough to recall memories to the time she left Seattle. She knows his strengths, his weaknesses, and how no matter how long he lives in Seattle he'll always be a Yankees fan.

"Let's go."

_///_

By the time they make it back to the hospital she's gasping for air and trying desperately to tell Cooper to call her dad, not that he has any idea who he is.

Mark hears it from down the hall at the same time she does, he laces his fingers tightly around hers before taking bigger steps, and picking up a faster pace, almost dragging her down the hall.

"What the hell happened?" Addison's choking out, because she may have left them there but she didn't leave her there to die. She couldn't have screwed anything up.

"I don't know," Cooper snaps as he tries to slow down Sloan's breathing. "Deep breaths"

"I CAN'T FUCKING BREATHE!" And if the situation wasn't so serious Addison would've burst out laughing, she is so Mark's daughter.

Mark stands back against the door, his right hand resting on his forehead; it takes everything in him to not scream.

"We need to take the baby out."

Cooper and Mark both turn to her at the same time. "What?"

"Addison, the baby is nowhere near old enough."

"If you want to keep your daughter," the word sounds foreign coming off of her lip. "Then this baby needs to come out now."

"Is she gonna die?" Sloan asks, her eyes sparkling up at the redhead nervously.

Addison doesn't answer.

_///_

After four agonizing hours and four panicked interruptions from Mark, she finally gives up. Stepping back from the tiny lifeless baby lying in front of her, a mixture of blue, red and purple, she pulls her gloves off, snapping them loudly for effect, and storms out of the OR.

Walking up to Mark her legs begin to shake, her shoulders tense and a few tears slip from her eyes. He knows the moment he sees her come into the room what happened. She spares him the speech; he'll give her that, at least she knows not to give the bullshit pity talk to him.

She takes a seat in the first chair, her dark purple scrubs stained with the dead newborn's blood. Mark can't help but to notice that's the closest thing he has to his grandchild.

"I should change," she says, more to herself than to him. He watches her eyes move into the distance, but her body remain exactly where it was before.

"Can I see her?" Mark speaks for the first time since she came out of surgery, and she shoots him a look that she'd give an immature teenager.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

He supposes she's right, she usually is anyway, but this is his granddaughter and at the risk of never seeing her face… he just needs to see her.

"Please, Addison," he pleads, his eyes bloodshot and tear-stained. When she looks up at him, noting his dejected expression, she can't refuse.

_///_

They walk back into the OR, where her body still lies, closed, but still torn into pieces nonetheless. He shivers at first glance, the bloodstained surgical equipment residing in the tray next to her. Addison turns to him, taking his hand in hers, she expects him to pull back but she doesn't.

Mark releases his hand for a moment and walks hesitantly up to his granddaughter. He places his index finger in the remarkably tiny hand before letting a few quick tears spill out. At this point he could care less if he cries, not that he'd ever had a problem with being vulnerable around Addison. He'd encounter a fight or two with his family a week, and every time he'd end up knocking on her door afterwards, she'd sit there and rub a few circles in his back while he ranted about his father, but she'd never feed him words. That's exactly what he loved about her.

The baby's so tiny that it can almost entirely fit in his hand, he notices. He looks back up to her, silently asking her approval, she nods.

He picks her up slowly, as if there's still a life to damage, and holds her with perfect grace. Addison watches on, a series of emotions overcoming her, regret trumping all of them. He would've made a great father.

He rocks her back and forth in his arms, which he has to hold together tightly in order for her not to slip through the gap. "Hi." He says, foreign, as he watches the object pushed tightly, yet carefully into his chest. "It's your grandpa, by the way." He laughs afterward, the absurdity of the situation hitting him. "I'm sorry," he continues, "It's just, me, as a grandpa?" He looks to Addison who smiles back at him. "Anyway, I wanted to let you know that even if you can't be here, with me, and with your mom." A sudden thought breaks into him, in a couple of hours once she wakes up he'll have to explain this to her too. "We love you. Okay? We love you so much. And I know your mom, well, maybe wasn't all into the idea of a child at first. Especially since your dad's such a jackass." Addison shakes her head, a grin playing upon her lips, "But it grew on her, she wanted you, and she did, she does love you."

He raises the back of his hand to his cheek, wiping away a few loose tears. "Okay." He nods, handing the baby over to Addison's open arms. "Okay," he repeats before walking out, leaving her alone in a world she should be so used to, and yet can't seem to look past.

_///_

Sloan wakes up two hours later to a distressed Mark sitting across the room holding his head in the base of his hands. She coughs a few times before forcing a half smile. "Mark?" He doesn't mind that she doesn't refer to him as "dad" because really, how could she?

He pulls his head up, sitting back in the chair and resting an arm on the small desk next to him. "Yeah?"

"She's dead isn't she?"

Addison walks up to the room but stops upon hearing Sloan's voice, she takes a step back and resides against the wall. She listens.

"I'm so sorry, Sloan."

She takes a deep breath, choking back a few salty tears. "Don't be."

Mark studies her for a second before murmuring 'fuck it', and walking over to the bed. He picks up her hand and places it around his. "I want to be here for you. Okay? Anything you need, anything."

"She doesn't have a name?"

"What?" Mark raises an eyebrow; maybe it's still the drugs talking.

"The baby, Mark, my daughter, what's her tombstone supposed to say? RIP Untitled?"

"Then let's name her."

She smiles to herself after a moment of thinking; he looks over at her and laughs, "What?"

"You name her." She insists, a glint appearing in her clear blue eyes.

Mark takes a step back in shock, his heart speeding up a little bit, "Oh, I couldn't."

"Please, for me."

"Sophia."

_///_

_It's a Wednesday morning, which both of them claim to love. Addison says she has a thing for Wednesdays; something about how being the middle of the week it's half way started, but also half way over. And Mark, well Mark likes Wednesdays because she does._

_She sits in the large walk in closet, which is one thing she's thankful for at Mark's godforsaken apartment. The Yankees onesie's lying in front of her, taunting her even, in a way that it makes her feel happy, lucky, excited, and yet like a total cheating whore at the same time. She can't imagine having this baby, being reminded every day of the mistakes she made, the mistakes all three of them made, but on the other hand she can't imagine not having it._

_He's good to her, in a way that makes her question everything she's ever thought she knew, but he treats her like she's the only woman the world, like she's a porcelain doll, or some sort of exotic princess. She can't complain, really, but he's unstable, she's unstable, and all it takes is one word for plates to go flying across the room and words to be thrown at each other. She also can't live like this, not matter how great it can be, especially if she's bringing a child into this world._

_She hears the key turn in the door to the apartment, signalling his arrival. He finds her there, Yankees onesie and all; his first impression is that she's having second thoughts. His second is that she's getting anxious about the arrival. He disregards the first._

_Addison looks up from the floor, pulling him down to her level in order to plant a soft kiss on his lips. He sits down behind her, slowly massaging her shoulder blades._

_"I met the cutest kid, today." He tells her, as something halfway between a smile and a smirk take over his face. "Smart too, she actually walked me through her mother's surgery."_

_"How old is she?"_

_Mark's eyes brighten. "Eight."_

_"Impressive." Addison says, but what she really means is 'I could so do that then, too.'_

_"And I was thinking, maybe, we could possibly use her name. You know, if the baby's a girl."_

_"Oh really?" Addison raises an eyebrow, surprised, yet pleased of Mark's sudden transformation. "And what would that be?"_

_"Sophia."_

_There are times like this where she feels she can do everything, where she has no doubt in the world that she'll make a great mother, Mark will be a decent father, and they can be a normal family. These are the times she likes to hold onto._

_///_

He ends up on her patio sipping glasses of way too expensive wine because that's just the way they work. Still, he'd be lying if he said the sunset over the beach, scratch that, over her back yard, didn't look absolutely stunning. Sam peaks over a couple of times, to check up on them he assumes, and decides that presumably he's become a good friend to her. This forms an ache in his chest that he hasn't felt since seeing her walk out of that on call room with Karev years ago, Mark ignores it, he's over it by now.

"I heard you, you know." Her eyes are fixed on the sky, watching as the orange faded into the red, mixed with yellow, and formed an illusion like no other.

He turns his head slightly; only catching the side of her face. "Heard what?"

"You told Sloan, you told you to name her baby Sophia." The name burns coming off of her tongue so bad she almost chokes.

His cheeks flush to a light shade of pink. "Oh, uh." He stutters.

"No, it's okay. I just, I'm sorry."

He shakes his head incessantly. "We both fucked up." It's the most simple, obvious answer in the world but it explains so much. All the dysfunction and what not, their relationship being built off of one step forward and two steps back.

"I know, but seeing you with Sloan now, I should've never told you you'd make a terrible father. Mark, you're an amazing father. I should've never doubted you."

"But it's not your fault; anyone in their right mind would've assumed I'd be terrible at parenting. Okay? It's not you." Agony fills his voice, he chokes it back solemnly.

"But I'm not anyone else, Mark. I'm Addison, your best friend." She doesn't bother to use past tense, none of it matters anyway.

"And I was in love with you, but I cheated. Who's the fucked up one here?"

"Me." She takes a long sip of her wine, smiling a little as it burned through her chest.

"No, let me tell you something, Addison. You don't give yourself enough credit, you never have."

She sits up and crosses her legs firmly, ignoring his accusation completely. "Why did you do it? Why did you cheat?"

"I was scared." He answers, honestly, before picking at a loose thread on the side of the lounge chair.

"I loved you, though." He repeats, "I loved you, which scared the hell out of me."

She sits up, pulling her long gray wrap sweater around her chest. "I'm going to bed. You can sleep in the guest room."

He pulls her down and places a soft, delicate kiss on her cheek. "Good night, Addie."

_///_

She wakes up before him and scribbles a quick note on a post-it next to his bed before leaving to check on Sloan. When she walks in the room Sloan's studying her with narrowed eyes, and her right eyebrow slightly arched. Addison focuses on the window, her attempt to avoid any questions involving her history with Sloan's father.

"You're pretty." She says, her eyes resting on the older woman's. "And you have like the most gorgeous eyes I've ever seen."

Addison flashes the smile she knows Mark loves. "Thank you."

"So you and-"

Addison laughs, cutting her off. "Not happening."

Sloan rolls her eyes, "I'm not ten years old, and I'm sure as hell not a virgin so it's not like the topic of sex is going to kill me."

"It's just not my place. Ask you father." She winks before walking out, never imagining her to actually act upon her suggestion.

_///_

"It was a Wednesday." Mark smiles, recalling the beginning of the memory, "I saw her walking out of her bio class, I remember, I noticed her because she was the one with a stack of books all the way up to chin. I said Hi, naturally, because well, your daddy may have been a little bit of a player. But something different happened, she didn't smile, or wink, or laugh, she rolled her eyes. That was the only thing I knew about her, besides the red hair, of course. It took a week before I saw her again, this time it was in the park, books still surrounding her. I went up to her, and we talked. Don't get any ideas, I mean it when I say talked. I guess she learned to trust me, don't ask me why, I'm still trying to figure that one out."

"So what happened?"

"I was too afraid to screw everything up that I didn't make a move, and a month later she met Derek, my roommate and also childhood best friend. They fell in love and got married, and I, I got to watch from the outside."

"That's it?" She asks, disappointed.

"Stop interrupting." He snaps, "No, that's only the beginning. The first time it happened we were both drunk so; I guess you could call it a mistake. But the second and third and twentieth time when there was no alcohol in sight it was different. And it wasn't just about sex. It was about her being tired of a loveless marriage and me being tired of watching it. He found us one day, actually, he walked in on us. He left after that, flew out to New York, and that's when he met Meredith."

"And then?"

"We lived together for two months, and she, she got pregnant." He blinks, "I'm sorry, this part still hurts. Anyway, I cheated on her, because I was scared of being in love, and she had an abortion. After that she flew to Seattle to win Derek back. When they finally called it quits I flew out there, we started something again but in the end…"

"Too much baggage?"

"Too much baggage."

Sloan props herself up on her elbow, giving her father a sad smile, "You really did love her didn't you."

"I did."

"And you know what?" She never had such an ability to read people's relationships before, but somehow figured this one out in minutes, "I think you still do."

_///_

There's rain pounding down on his windshield as he drives at a record speed back to her house, he swears under his breath, it is not supposed to rain in LA.

When she opens the door she doesn't have to ask what he's doing there, she doesn't have to ask why, because she's seen that look before, his expression actually making it hard for her to breathe. He slips a hand behind her head, pulling her lips onto his and kissing them passionately as his other hand slid to the small of her back, pressing her closer. She pulls back, contemplating whether or not to question this, she chooses the latter.

Clothes are thrown off in a hurry and lips are smashed together in deprivation, it's their forte, hungry-driven and all. There's nail marks across his back and bite necks along her neck and chest which will be the only thing proving this ever happened. They won't speak of it. They never do.

Afterwards they lie next to each other, silence overcomes them, as slowly one by one they drift off to sleep.

_///_

_And doesn't that sound familiar?  
Doesn't that hit too close to home?  
Doesn't that make you shiver; the way things could've gone?  
And doesn't it feel peculiar that everyone wants a little more.  
So that I do remember to never go that far,  
Could you leave me with a scar?_


End file.
